In this dialogue, Cephalus and Socrates discuss the nature of old age, wealth, and justice, with Cephalus suggesting that wealth provides peace of mind as one approaches death. Socrates challenges the definitions of justice proposed by Polemarchus and Thrasymachus, arguing that true justice cannot involve harming others, even enemies. The conversation reveals the complexity of justice and its relationship to power, suggesting that what is deemed just may often serve the interests of the stronger party in society.
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Book 1
In this dialogue, Cephalus and Socrates discuss the nature of old age, wealth, and justice, with Cephalus suggesting that wealth provides peace of mind as one approaches death. Socrates challenges the definitions of justice proposed by Polemarchus and Thrasymachus, arguing that true justice cannot involve harming others, even enemies. The conversation reveals the complexity of justice and its relationship to power, suggesting that what is deemed just may often serve the interests of the stronger party in society.
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Book 1 :
CEPHALUS: By Zeus, Socrates, I will tell you
exactly what I think. You see, a number of us who are more or less the same age often get together, so as to preserve the old saying.6 When they meet, the majority of our members lament, longing for the lost pleasures of their youth and reminiscing about sex, drinking parties, feasts, and the other things that go along with them “How are you as far as sex goes, Sophocles? Can you still make love to a woman?” “Quiet, man,” he replied, “I am very glad to have escaped from all that, like a slave who has escaped from a deranged and savage master.” I thought at the time what he said was sensible, and I still do. You see, old age brings peace and freedom from all such things. When the appetites cease to stress and importune us, everything Sophocles said comes to pass, and we escape from many insane masters. But in these matters, and in those concerning one’s relatives, the real cause isn’t old age, Socrates, but the way people live. If they are orderly and contented, old age, too, is only moderately onerous; if they aren’t, both old age, Socrates, and youth are hard to bear. they think you bear old age more easily, not because of the way you live, but because you are wealthy. For the wealthy, they say, have many consolations. 8 The same account applies to those who are not rich and find old age hard to bear: a good person would not easily bear old age if it were coupled with poverty, but one who wasn’t good would not be at peace with himself even if he were wealthy. SOCRATES: Did you inherit most of your wealth, Cephalus, or did you make it yourself? CEPHALUS: What did I make for myself, Socrates, you ask. As a moneymaker I am in between my grandfather and my father However, my father, Lysanias, diminished that amount to even less than I have now. As for me, I am satisfied to leave my sons here no less, but a little more, than I inherited. SOCRATES: The reason I asked is that you do not seem particularly to love money. And those who have not made it themselves are usually like that. But those who have made it themselves love it twice as much as anyone else. For just as poets love their poems and fathers their children, so those who have made money take their money seriously both as something they have made themselves and—just as other people do—because it is useful. This makes them difficult even to be with, since they are unwilling to praise anything except money SOCRATES: Indeed, it is. But tell me something else. What do you think is the greatest good you have enjoyed as a result of being very wealthy? CEPHALUS: What I have to say probably would not persuade the masses. But you are well aware, Socrates, that when someone thinks his end is near, he becomes frightened and concerned about things he did not fear before. It is then that the stories told about Hades, that a person who has been unjust here must pay the penalty there—stories he used to make fun of— twist his soul this way and that for fear they are true. And whether because of the weakness of old age, or because he is now closer to what happens in Hades and has a clearer view of it, or whatever it is, he is filled with foreboding and fear, and begins to calculate and consider whether he has been unjust to anyone Sweet hope is in his heart Nurse and companion to his age Hope, captain of the ever-twisting Mind of mortal men. How amazingly well he puts that. It is in this connection I would say the possession of wealth is most valuable, not for every man, but for a good and orderly one. Not cheating someone even unintentionally, not lying to him, not owing a sacrifice to some god or money to a person, and as a result departing for that other place in fear—the possession of wealth makes no small contribution to this. It has many other uses, too, but putting one thing against the other, Socrates, I would say that for a man with any sense, that is how wealth is most useful. SOCRATES: A fine sentiment, Cephalus. But speaking of that thing itself, justice,9 are we to say it is simply speaking the truth and paying whatever debts one has incurred? SOCRATES: Then the following is not the definition of justice: to speak the truth and repay what one has borrowed. POLEMARCHUS: Am I, Polemarchus, not heir of all your possessions? Cephalus replied with a laugh: Certainly. And off he went to the sacrifice. SOCRATES: Then tell us, heir to the discussion, just what Simonides said about justice that you think is correct. POLEMARCHUS: He said it is just to give to each what is owed to him SOCRATES: Well, now, it is not easy to disagree with Simonides, since he is a wise and godlike man. But what exactly does he mean? Perhaps you know, Polemarchus, but I do not understand. Clearly, he does not mean what we said a moment ago—namely, giving back to someone whatever he has lent to you, even if he is out of his mind when he asks for it. And yet what he has lent to you is surely something that is owed to him, isn’t it? POLEMARCHUS: Something else indeed, by Zeus! He meant friends owe something good to their friends, never something bad. SOCRATES: I understand. You mean someone does not give a lender what he is owed by giving him gold, when the giving and taking would be harmful, and both he and the lender are friends. Isn’t that what you say Simonides meant? SOCRATES: Now what about this? Should one also give to one’s enemies whatever is owed to them? SOCRATES: It seems, then, Simonides was speaking in riddles—just like a poet!—when he said what justice is. For what he meant, it seems, is that it is just to give to each what is appropriate to him, and this is what he called giving him what he is owed. SOCRATES: Then what, in the name of Zeus, do you think he would answer if someone asked him: “Simonides, what owed or appropriate things does the craft10 we call medicine give, and to which things?” POLEMARCHUS: Clearly, he would say it gives drugs, food, and drink to bodies. SOCRATES: And what owed or appropriate things does the craft we call cooking give, and to which things? POLEMARCHUS: It gives pleasant flavors to food. SOCRATES: Good. Now what does the craft we would call justice give, and to whom or what does it give it? POLEMARCHUS: If we are to follow the previous answers, Socrates, it gives benefit to friends and harm to enemies. SOCRATES: Does Simonides mean, then, that treating friends well and enemies badly is justice? POLEMARCHUS: I believe so. SOCRATES: And who is most capable of treating sick friends well and enemies badly in matters of disease and health? SOCRATES: So to people who are not at war, a just man is useless? POLEMARCHUS: No, I don’t think that at all. SOCRATES: Tell me, then, what is justice useful for using or acquiring in peacetime? POLEMARCHUS: Contracts, Socrates. SOCRATES: And by contracts you mean partnerships, or what? POLEMARCHUS: Partnerships, of course. SOCRATES: So when money is not being used, that is when justice is useful for it? POLEMARCHUS: It looks that way. SOCRATES: And when one needs to keep a pruning knife safe, justice is useful both in partnerships and for the individual. When you need to use it, however, it is the craft of vine pruning that is useful? SOCRATES: And so in all other cases, too, justice is useless when they are in use, but useful when they are not? SOCRATES: Then justice cannot be something excellent, can it, my friend, if it is only useful for useless things. But let’s consider the following point. Isn’t the person who is cleverest at landing a blow, whether in boxing or any other kind of fight, also cleverest at guarding against it? SOCRATES: So if a just person is clever at guarding money, he must also be clever at stealing it SOCRATES: It seems, then, that a just person has turned out to be a kind of thief. According to you, Homer, and Simonides, then, justice seems to be some sort of craft of stealing—one that benefits friends and harms enemies. Isn’t that what you meant? POLEMARCHUS: No, by Zeus, it isn’t. But I do not know anymore what I meant. I still believe this, however, that benefiting one’s friends and harming one’s enemies is justice. SOCRATES: Speaking of friends, do you mean those a person believes to be good and useful, or those who actually are good and useful, even if he does not believe they are, and similarly with enemies? SOCRATES: But don’t people make mistakes about this, so that lots of those who seem to them to be good and useful aren’t, and vice versa? SOCRATES: Then it follows, Polemarchus, that it is just for many people— the ones who are mistaken in their judgment—to harm their friends, since they are bad for them, and benefit their enemies, since they are good. And so we will find ourselves claiming the very opposite of what we said Simonides meant. POLEMARCHUS: We said that a friend is someone who is believed to be good. SOCRATES: With respect to the virtue13 that makes dogs good, or to the one that makes horses good? SOCRATES: And what about human beings, comrade; shouldn’t we say that, when they are harmed, they become worse with respect to human virtue? SOCRATES: Then, my dear Polemarchus, people who have been harmed are bound to become more unjust. POLEMARCHUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: Now, can musicians use music to make people unmusical? SOCRATES: Well, then, can just people use justice to make people unjust? In a word, can good people use their virtue or goodness to make people bad? SOCRATES: For it isn’t the function of heat to cool things down, I imagine, but that of its opposite. SOCRATES: So the function of a good person isn’t to harm, but that of his opposite. SOCRATES: So it isn’t the function of a just person to harm a friend or anyone else, Polemarchus, but that of his opposite, an unjust person . I mean, what he says is not true. For it has become clear to us that it is never just to harm anyone. POLEMARCHUS: I agree. SOCRATES: You and I will fight as partners, then, against anyone who tells us that Simonides, Bias, Pittacus, or any of our other wise and blessedly happy men said this. POLEMARCHUS: I, for my part, am willing to be your partner in the battle SOCRATES: All right. Since it has become apparent, then, that neither justice nor the just consists in benefiting friends and harming enemies, what else should one say it is? Now, while we were speaking, Thrasymachus had tried many times to take over the discussion but was restrained by those sitting near him, who wanted to hear our argument to the end. When we paused after what I had just said, however, he could not keep quiet any longer: crouched up like a wild beast about to spring, he hurled himself at us as if to tear us to pieces. Polemarchus and I were frightened and flustered as he roared into our midst: . If Polemarchus and I made an error in our investigation of the accounts, you may be sure we did so involuntarily. If we were searching for gold, we would never voluntarily give way to each other, if by doing so we would destroy our chance of finding it. So do not think that in searching for justice, a thing more honorable than a large quantity of gold, we would foolishly give way to one another or be less than completely serious about finding it THRASYMACHUS: What if I show you another answer about justice, one that is different from all these and better than any of them? What penalty would you deserve then? THRASYMACHUS: What a pleasant fellow you are! But in addition to learning, you must pay money. SOCRATES: I will if I ever have any. No, it is much more appropriate for you to answer, since you say you do know and can tell us. Don’t be obstinate. Give your answer as a favor to me and do not begrudge your teaching to Glaucon and the others. While I was saying this, Glaucon and the others begged him to do as I asked. Thrasymachus clearly wanted to speak in order to win a good reputation, since he thought he had a very good answer. But he pretended to want to win a victory at my expense by having me do the answering. However, he agreed in the end, and then said: SOCRATES: When you say I learn from others, you are right, Thrasymachus; but when you say I do not give thanks, you are wrong. THRASYMACHUS: Listen, then. I say justice is nothing other than what is advantageous for the stronger SOCRATES: First, I must understand what you mean. For, as things stand, I do not. What is advantageous for the stronger, you say, is just. What on earth do you mean, Thrasymachus? THRASYMACHUS: Don’t you know, then, that some cities are ruled by a tyranny, some by a democracy, and some by an aristocracy? SOCRATES: Of course I do. THRASYMACHUS: And that what is stronger in each city is the ruling element? SOCRATES: Certainly. THRASYMACHUS: And each type of rule makes laws that are advantageous for itself: democracy makes democratic ones, tyranny tyrannical ones, and so on with the others. And by so legislating, each declares that what is just for its subjects is what is advantageous for itself —the ruler—and it punishes anyone who deviates from this as lawless and unjust. That, Socrates, is what I say justice is, the same in all cities: what is advantageous for the established rule. Since the established rule is surely stronger, anyone who does the rational calculation correctly will conclude that the just is the same everywhere—what is advantageous for the stronger. something advantageous. But you add for the stronger. I do not know about that. We will have to look into it. SOCRATES: That is just what I am going to do. Tell me, then, you also claim, don’t you, that it is just to obey the rulers? SOCRATES: And are the rulers in each city infallible, or are they liable to error? SOCRATES: And a law is correct if it prescribes what is advantageous for the rulers themselves, and incorrect if it prescribes what is disadvantageous for them? Is that what you mean? SOCRATES: According to your account, then, it isn’t only just to do what is advantageous for the stronger, but also the opposite: what is not advantageous. SOCRATES: The same as you, I think. But let’s examine it more closely. Haven’t we agreed that the rulers are sometimes in error as to what is best for themselves when they give orders to their subjects, and yet that it is just for their subjects to do whatever their rulers order? Wasn’t that agreed? POLEMARCHUS: Who needs a witness? Thrasymachus himself agrees that the rulers sometimes issue orders that are bad for them, and that it is just for the others to obey them SOCRATES: It makes no difference, Polemarchus. If Thrasymachus wants to put it that way now, let’s accept it. But tell me, Thrasymachus, is that what you intended to say, that what is just is what the stronger believes to be advantageous for him, whether it is in fact advantageous for him or not? Is that what we are to say you mean? to the extent that he is a ruler, never makes errors and unerringly decrees what is best for himself, and that is what his subject must do. Thus, as I said from the first, it is just to do what is advantageous for the stronger SOCRATES: Bless you, Thrasymachus; I would not so much as try! But to prevent this sort of confusion from happening to us again, would you define whether you mean the ruler and stronger in the ordinary sense or in what you were just now calling the precise sense, when you say that it is just for the weaker to do what is advantageous for him, since he is the stronger? SOCRATES: That’s enough of that! Tell me: is a doctor—in the precise sense, the one you mentioned before—a moneymaker or someone who treats the sick? Tell me about the one who is really a doctor. SOCRATES: In other words, we should not take any account of the fact that he sails in a ship, and he should not be called a sailor for that reason. For it is not because he is sailing that he is called a ship’s captain, but because of the craft he practices and his rule over sailors? SOCRATES: It is like this: suppose you asked me whether it is satisfactory for a body to be a body, or whether it needs something else. I would answer, “Of course it needs something. In fact, that is why the craft of medicine has been discovered—because a body is deficient and it is not satisfactory for it to be like that.19 To provide what is advantageous, that is what the craft was developed for.” Do you think I am speaking correctly in saying this, or not? SOCRATES: What about medicine itself? Is it deficient? Does a craft need some further virtue, as the eyes are in need of sight and the ears of hearing, so that another craft is needed to consider and provide what is advantageous for them? SOCRATES: Doesn’t it follow that medicine does not consider what is advantageous for medicine, but for the body? advantageous for itself—since it has no further needs—but what is advantageous for that with which it deals? THRASYMACHUS: Apparently so. SOCRATES: Now surely, Thrasymachus, the various crafts rule over and are stronger than that with which they deal? SOCRATES: So no kind of knowledge considers or enjoins what is advantageous for itself, but what is advantageous for the weaker, which is subject to it. He finally agreed to this too, although he tried to fight it. When he had agreed, however, I said: Surely then, no doctor, to the extent that he is a doctor, considers or enjoins what is advantageous for himself, but what is advantageous for his patient? For we agreed that a doctor, in the precise sense, is a ruler of bodies, not a moneymaker. Isn’t that what we agreed? SOCRATES: So then, Thrasymachus, no one in any position of rule, to the extent that he is a ruler, considers or enjoins what is advantageous for himself, but what is advantageous for his subject—that on which he practices his craft. It is to his subject and what is advantageous and proper for it that he looks, and everything he says and does, he says and does for it. THRASYMACHUS: Because she is letting you run around sniveling and doesn’t wipe your nose when you need it, since it is her fault that you do not know the difference between sheep and shepherds. SOCRATES: What exactly is it I do not know? THRASYMACHUS: You think that shepherds and cowherds consider what is good for their sheep and cattle, and fatten them and take care of them with some aim in mind other than what is good for their master and themselves. Moreover, you believe that rulers in cities—true rulers, that is—think about their subjects in a different way than one does about sheep, and that what they consider night and day is something other than what is advantageous for themselves. You are so far from understanding justice and what is just, and injustice and what is unjust, that you do not realize that justice is really the good of another, what is advantageous for the stronger and the ruler, and harmful to the one who obeys and serves. Injustice is the opposite, it rules those simpleminded—for that is what they really are—just people, and the ones it rules do what is advantageous for the other who is stronger; and they make the one they serve happy, but they do not make themselves the least bit happy. You must consider it as follows, Socrates, or you will be the most naïve of all: a just man must always get less than does an unjust one. First, in their contracts with one another, when a just man is partner to an unjust, you will never find, when the partnership ends, that the just one gets more than the unjust, but less. Second, in matters relating to the city, when taxes are to be paid, a just man pays more on an equal amount of property, an unjust one less; but when the city is giving out refunds, a just man gets nothing while an unjust one makes a large profit. Finally, when each of them holds political office, a just person—even if he is not penalized in other ways—finds that his private affairs deteriorate more because he has to neglect them, that he gains no advantage from the public purse because of his justice, and that he is hated by his relatives and acquaintances because he is unwilling to do them an unjust favor. The opposite is true of an unjust man in every respect. I mean, of course, the person I described before: the man of great power who does better21 than everyone else. He is the one you should consider if you want to figure out how much more advantageous it is for the individual to be unjust than just. You will understand this most easily if you turn your thoughts to injustice of the most complete sort, the sort that makes those who do injustice happiest, and those who suffer it—those who are unwilling to do injustice— most wretched. The sort I mean is tyranny, because it uses both covert means and force to appropriate the property of others—whether it is sacred or secular, public or private—not little by little, but all at once. If So you see, Socrates, injustice, if it is on a large enough scale, is stronger, freer, and more masterful than justice. And, as I said from the beginning, justice is what is advantageous for the stronger, while injustice is profitable and advantageous for oneself. t. Or do you think it is a trivial matter you are trying to determine, and not rather a way of life—the one that would make living life that way most profitable for each of us? SOCRATES: Either that, or you care nothing for us and so are not worried about whether we will live better or worse lives because of our ignorance of what you claim to know I do not believe that injustice is more profitable than justice, not even if you should give it full scope to do what it wants. Suppose, my good fellow, that there is an unjust person, and suppose he does have the power to do injustice, whether by covert means or open warfare; you did not consider it necessary to maintain the same level of exactness when you later turned to the true shepherd SOCRATES: Then, it is clear now, Thrasymachus, that no type of craft or rule provides what is beneficial for itself; but, as we have been saying for some time, it provides and enjoins what is beneficial for its subject, and aims at what is advantageous for it—the weaker, not the stronger. That is why I said just now, my dear Thrasymachus, that no one chooses to rule voluntarily and take other people’s troubles in hand and straighten them out, but each asks for wages. You see, anyone who is going to practice his type of craft well never does or enjoins what is best for himself—at least not when he is acting as his craft prescribes—but what is best for his subject. It is because of this, it seems, that wages must be provided to a person if he is going to be willing to rule, whether they are in the form of money or honor or a penalty if he refuses. GLAUCON: What do you mean, Socrates? I am familiar with the first two kinds of wages, but I do not understand what penalty you mean, or how you can call it a wage. SOCRATES: Then you do not understand the sort of wages for which the best people rule, when they are willing to rule. Don’t you know that those who love honor and those who love money are despised, and rightly so? So, if they are going to be willing to rule, some compulsion or punishment must be brought to bear on them—that is probably why wanting to rule when one does not have to is thought to be shameful. Now, the greatest punishment for being unwilling to rule is being ruled by someone worse than oneself. And I think it is fear of that that makes good people rule when they do rule. They approach ruling, not as though they were going to do something good or as though they were going to enjoy themselves in it, but as something necessary, since it cannot be entrusted to anyone better than— or eveThere it would be quite clear that anyone who is really and truly a ruler does not naturally seek what is advantageous for himself, but what is so for his subject n as good as—themselves There it would be quite clear that anyone who is really and truly a ruler does not naturally seek what is advantageous for himself, but what is so for his subject SOCRATES: Come on then, Thrasymachus, answer us from the beginning. You say, don’t you, that complete injustice is more profitable than complete justice? THRASYMACHUS: Yes, if they do complete injustice and can bring cities and whole nations under their power. Perhaps, you thought I meant pickpockets? SOCRATES: Yes, I am not unaware of what you mean. But this did surprise me: that you include injustice with virtue and wisdom, and justice with their opposites. But now, obviously, you will say that injustice is fine and strong and apply to it all the attributes we used to apply to justice, since you dare to include it with virtue and wisdom SOCRATES: It makes no difference. But here is a further question I would like you to try to answer: do you think that a just person wants to do better25 than another just person? SOCRATES: In any branch of knowledge or ignorance, do you think that a knowledgeable person would intentionally try to take more for himself than another knowledgeable person, or to do or say more, and not rather exactly what the one like himself would do in the same situation? e. For it was claimed, I believe, that injustice is stronger and more powerful than justice. But now, if justice is indeed wisdom and virtue, it will be easy to show, I suppose, that it is stronger than injustice, since injustice is ignorance—no one could now be ignorant of that. However, I, at any rate, do not want to consider the matter in such simple terms, Thrasymachus, but to look into it in some such way as this: would you say that a city may be unjust and try to enslave other cities unjustly, and succeed at enslaving them,27 and hold them in subjection which it enslaved in the past? SOCRATES: You are doing well at it, too. So please me some more by answering this question: do you think that a city, an army, a band of robbers or thieves, or any other group with a common unjust purpose would be able to achieve it if its members were unjust to each other? SOCRATES: Because, Thrasymachus, injustice causes factions, hatreds, and quarrels among them, while justice brings friendship and a sense of common purpose. Isn’t that so? THRASYMACHUS: I will say it is, in order not to disagree with you. SOCRATES: You are still doing well on that front, which is very good of you. So tell me this: if the function of injustice is to produce hatred wherever it occurs, then whenever it arises, whether among free men or slaves, won’t it make them hate one another, form factions, and be unable to achieve any common purpose? SOCRATES: Well, then, my amazing fellow, if injustice arises within a single individual, will it lose its power or will it retain it undiminished? THRASYMACHUS: Let’s say that it retains it undiminished. SOCRATES: Apparently, then, its power is such that whenever it comes to exist in something— whether in a city, a family, an army, or anything else whatsoever—it makes that thing, first of all, incapable of acting in concert with itself, because of the faction and difference it creates; and, second of all, an enemy to itself, and to what is in every way its opposite: namely, justice. Isn’t that so? SOCRATES: And in a single individual, too, I presume, it will produce the very same effects that it is in its nature to produce. First, it will make him incapable of acting because of inner faction and not being of one mind with himself; second, it will make him his own enemy as well as the enemy of just people. Isn’t that right? SOCRATES: Then an unjust person will also be an enemy of the gods, Thrasymachus, while a just person will be their friend? SOCRATES: Come on, then, complete the banquet for me by continuing to answer as you have been doing now. We have shown that just people are wiser and better and more capable of acting, while unjust ones are not even able to act together. However, we must now examine the question, as we proposed to do before,28 of whether just people also live better and are happier than unjust ones SOCRATES: All right. Does there seem to you also to be a virtue29 for each thing to which some function is assigned? Let’s go over the same ground again. We say that eyes have some function? SOCRATES: Well, then. Could eyes perform their function well if they lacked their proper virtue but had the vice instead? SOCRATES: So, if ears are deprived of their own virtue, they too perform their function badly? THRASYMACHUS: No, there is nothing else. SOCRATES: Then what about living? Don’t we say that it is a function of a soul? THRASYMACHUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: And don’t we also say that a soul has a virtue? SOCRATES: It is necessary, then, that a bad soul rules and takes care of things badly, and that a good soul does all these things well? SOCRATES: So a just soul and a just man will live well and an unjust one badly. SOCRATES: Therefore, a just person is happy and an unjust one wretched. THRASYMACHUS: Let’s say so. SOCRATES: But surely it is profitable, not to be wretched, but to be happy. THRASYMACHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: So then, blessed Thrasymachus, injustice is never more profitable than justice
(Sources in The History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences 8) Alexander Jones (Auth.), Alexander Jones (Eds.) - Pappus of Alexandria Book 7 of The Collection - Part 2